Lady Violet Attends a Wedding, page 10
By the time we were assembled in Miss Engle’s sitting room and quizzing the maid about Miss Engle’s whereabouts, our mood had lost much of its jollity.
“Where could she be?” Anna asked, leading us back out into the corridor. “The house is large, but not that large. She’d never venture belowstairs, the weather is too dreary to be out walking, and the chapel isn’t lit except on holidays.”
I stopped at the top of the main staircase. “When we find Felix, we will find Miss Engle.” I put more certainty into my tone than I felt. Felix was a gentleman. If he were to steal away with his bride to someplace private, he would not allow her absence to go on long enough to be remarked. My cousins and I had been searching for the better part of an hour already.
“Maybe they’re in the stables,” Heloise said, starting down the steps. “Felix probably thinks horses are romantic.”
Saddle rooms with doors that locked could be romantic. “If Miss Engle is marrying Felix, she’d better think horses are romantic too.”
Anna came with us as far as the landing. “Let’s just have our tea without her. We can plan the wedding breakfast some other time.”
To blazes with the wedding breakfast. Katie wasn’t the sort of young lady who would enjoy causing drama, and her absence inspired my concern.
“I’ll have a look around the stables. You are both welcome to the tea tray in my sitting room, though the tea is doubtless cold by now.”
“We’ll order a fresh pot,” Anna said, gazing out the oriel window. “If you’re off to the stables, bundle up. The sky has turned nasty again.”
Not only had the sky turned nasty, but the wind had as well. Green leaves littered the drive, torn from their branches by gusts that slapped rain against the windowpanes.
Helly touched my arm. “Don’t go out there. If Miss Engle and Felix took a notion to admire the horses, they won’t thank you for interrupting.”
“What if Miss Engle took a notion to walk up and down the drive, and she’s slipped in the muddy footing?”
Helly’s gaze turned pensive. “She would not walk up and down the drive alone, would she?”
“I confess I do not know the lady all that well, but her brother was not on hand this morning to escort her. If Felix wasn’t available, I doubt she’d trouble anybody else.”
St. Sevier came up the steps, a book in his hand. “I see three ladies all looking apprehensive. Has somebody’s favorite shawl gone missing?”
His question was meant to be teasing, and Helly and Anna simpered accordingly, but I was reminded that at the house party earlier in the summer, my first indication that trouble was afoot had been a missing shawl.
“I fear somebody’s fiancée has gone missing. Monsieur, would you mind seeing me to the stables?”
St. Sevier should have launched into a tirade about the foolishness of women who had no sense where foul weather was concerned. I deserved at least that.
“You are concerned,” he said, peering at me. “Very well. Tell me what troubles you, and if a trip to the stables must be made, I shall make it. You will remain safe and warm, please, while I catch a lung fever in the name of chivalry.”
Heloise sighed, Anna fluttered a hand at her throat, while I felt a smidgeon of relief. St. Sevier was complaining again—merely complaining—and that was progress of a sort.
“You’ve lost your fiancée,” Hector said, pretending to peruse the biographies. “Rather impressive blunder, even for you, Felix.”
“Hector, you are not helping,” I snapped. I had gathered with my brothers, cousins, St. Sevier, Mr. Engle, and Sebastian in the library after a somewhat awkward evening meal. At Felix’s request, I had not voiced my concerns prior to supper. We had gained agreement from the others that alarming Papa at this point would serve no purpose.
As far as the earl was concerned, Miss Engle was resting in her room in hopes of warding off a head cold.
“Well, Hector is right.” Ajax, predictably, defended his closest sibling. “Felix knows Miss Engle better than any of us, he’s the reason she has come to bide here, and we must conclude he’s the reason she has decamped.”
Brothers. “We do not know that she has decamped. She might have turned an ankle, fallen into the river, or—"
“Dashed her head on a rock,” Helly added.
“Or come upon poachers,” Anna said, “who take very unkindly to anyone coming upon them when they are poaching.”
Sebastian spoke up from his post leaning on the end of the mantel, his chin propped on his hand. “We made as thorough a search of the woods as could be made given the weather. If she was conscious, she should have heard us calling out to her.”
“And if she was not conscious?” That from Felix, who looked pale and tired after tromping through the woods for half the afternoon.
“We will renew the search first thing in the morning,” I said. “We’ll make a grid, get the groundskeepers, footmen, and grooms involved. If Miss Engle is anywhere in those woods, we will find her.”
Mr. Cantrell Engle had joined in the search, as had St. Sevier. Hugh remained silent, though I knew what he was thinking: Another female had taken an unreasonable risk.
“Katie is sensible,” Mr. Engle observed from the wing chair closest to the hearth. “Or she has been in recent years. If she’s twisted an ankle or taken a fall, she will find the nearest safe haven and stay there until we can locate her. She might be in the village.”
He sounded puzzled rather than panicked, and that calmed me. “In the village, Mr. Engle?”
“She does love to shop, and the village is the closest place to do that. It’s not a long walk, and if she were intent on, say, purchasing a little token for her intended, she might not have announced her plans.”
“But why bide in the village?” Felix paced to the window. “She doesn’t know anybody there, it’s a muddy walk, and the shops are dreary.”
“Still,” I said, “they are shops. If she slipped in the mud, or some other mischief befell her in the village, somebody will send us a note.” Somebody should have already sent us a note, given the late hour.
Hector sniffed. “If they can write. Half of ’em don’t put much store by letters.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Felix retorted.
“You are being exceedingly disagreeable, Hector,” I observed before Hector could defend himself. “We must ascertain who last saw Miss Engle and what her movements were prior to her disappearance.”
This exercise might at least quell Hector’s attempts to bicker with Felix.
“I saw Miss Engle at breakfast.” Anna had taken one of the chairs at the reading table. “She said she wanted to post a letter to her mama. I told her to leave it in the foyer, and Uncle would frank it for her to save on the postage.”
Why write to your mama when she should be en route to join the household? “Do we know if that letter was sent?”
Sebastian sidled over to sit at the desk, where he took a piece of paper from the tray and uncapped the bottle of ink.
“The boot-boy would know if the letter was sent,” Felix said. “I can ask him.”
“He won’t know if he can’t read,” Hector muttered.
Ajax smacked him on the arm, saving me the trouble.
“Did anybody see Miss Engle go up to her bedroom after breakfast?” I asked.
Mr. Engle brightened. “I did. We passed on the stairs as I went down to eat. She was wearing a morning dress that simply would not do for anything but the most informal occasions. I suggested she change into something more elegant, given that she was a guest in his lordship’s household. She told me to mind my own business, which is not like her at all.”
“Would you recognize that dress, Mr. Engle?”
“Of course. Pale green muslin sprigged with lavender fleur-de-lis, a bit frayed at the cuffs.”
“Helly and Anna, will you check to see if the muslin is in Miss Engle’s wardrobe, and if so, ask her maid what she changed into.” A woman intent on braving the elements dressed differently from a lady planning a day indoors.
We gradually pieced together Miss Engle’s whereabouts until late morning, at which time she’d told Anna she was going to her room for a shawl. She’d not been seen thereafter.
Or she hadn’t been seen by anybody willing to admit as much to this group.
“We should all get some sleep,” Ajax suggested when the discussion had made a third circuit over the same questions. “If we’re to be up early to renew our search, we’ll need our rest.”
He and Hector left, along with Helly and Anna.
Felix remained at the window, gazing out into the darkness. “Engle, you said Katie has been sensible in recent years. Was that not the case in her girlhood?”
St. Sevier pretended to study the orrery holding pride of place in the bow window, while Sebastian looked absorbed in his note-taking.
“Katie was fanciful as a child,” Mr. Engle said, “imagining herself to be everything from a pirate princess to an Amazon. She ran away from home twice that I know of, once in a fit of pique over some imagined slight from my mother, once when she was out of charity with our younger sisters. All quite dramatic. She spent a night in the hayloft on the first occasion and in the spring house on the second. Papa was quite stern with her the next morning, though I’m fairly certain he knew exactly where she’d got off to. That was years ago, of course, though dare I mention the term ‘bridal nerves’?”
Felix skewered Engle with a glower. “Katie has no cause to be nervous, and she has no idea where the spring houses might be on this property. One must ask, though, why her parents aren’t here to offer their support as her wedding day approaches.”
Mr. Engle rose. “A very good question. I have written to my father, asking him the same thing. We can hardly hold the nuptials without the bride’s parents on hand to give their blessing, can we? Whatever Katie is about, I’m sure we will find her safe and sound in the morning. I bid the company good night and pray the weather tomorrow is halfway reasonable.”
He bowed to me and withdrew on a cloud of expensive fragrance, leaving me with Felix, St. Sevier, and Sebastian.
“Felix, have you something to say?” I was tired, and my head ached slightly, but I also knew my brother.
“Only the same question I put to Engle, for which he had no answer. Katie and I came here expecting to speak our vows as soon as her parents arrived with her trousseau. We have no parents, no trousseau, and no Katie. They knew where she was, and it would be the simplest thing in the world to have somebody slip her a note that her mama had arrived at the posting inn and had need of her.”
Sebastian brushed the quill pen across his fingertips. “You’re saying her own parents kidnapped her? For what purpose?”
“To prevent me from marrying her. My prospects are adequate, but many other fellows have more means than I do. Perhaps while I’ve been mucking stalls and backing colts, her parents have been securing a better offer for her.”
St. Sevier turned the orrery a few cranks and set the planets in motion around the sun. “Why didn’t Katie’s father simply write to Cantrell,” he asked, “and have him escort his sister back to Town on a plea of illness in the family or some other tarradiddle? Why such drama?”
Felix’s theory—that Katie’s own parents would spirit her away from her groom—suggested another possibility, which I wasn’t about to air before my brother.
I took Felix gently by the arm and steered him toward the door. “We can dispatch somebody to Town and have them take a discreet peek at the goings-on at the Engles’ house. If she’s there, we will soon learn of it.”
A soft rumble overhead suggested we were in for yet another rainy night.
“We won’t solve this by depriving ourselves of sleep.” Sebastian set the pen in the pen tray and rose from the desk. “Seek your bed, Felix, and in the morning, we might find that your bride simply fell asleep in a guest room. Stranger things have happened.”
Felix left with that meager reassurance, closing the door behind him.
“Violet has something to say,” St. Sevier murmured as the solar system drifted to a halt. “Something that would alarm her brother and will very likely alarm me as well.”
Sebastian propped his hips against the desk and crossed his arms. “The earl interfered with one child’s marital prospects. Perhaps Violet thinks he’s up to his old tricks, for the thought certainly occurred to me.”
I looked from one man to the other. “Papa has the means to make a young lady temporarily disappear, and he has what he doubtless thinks is an excellent motive—his own self-interest.”
I was in no fit state to confront my father late in the evening, but as the sun rose on another damp, mizzling, chilly morning, I donned one of my favorite velvet day dresses and prepared to beard the lion in his lair.
Papa avoided the breakfast parlor, claiming only rogues and rascals dined there, but he did not avoid good food first thing in the day. He took a tray in his apartment, and I was determined to join him, where no helpful brother could intrude on our conversation.
“Darling girl,”—he gestured with a piece of toast—“you look like a grandmother who lost a tavern brawl. When will you set aside your turbans and scarves?”
“When the sight of my injuries no longer offends the digestion. Good morning, Papa.” I took a seat at his table, which was situated next to the windows in his private parlor. “Have you kidnapped Miss Engle?”
He turned a suspiciously innocent look on me. “Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because her family could involve us in scandal? Because she hasn’t any water meadows among her settlements? Because you have some well-heeled widow in mind for Felix?” I poured myself a cup of tea, because of course, Papa could not be bothered to do that for me.
“Gracious, Daughter, you woke in a cross mood today. Is the chit missing?”
I loathed the word chit. Papa’s use of it implied that a woman on the verge of marriage was little better than a child.
“Apparently so.”
“I did wonder why a lot of otherwise sensible men spent a damp afternoon pretending to admire a dreary old woods. If she’s nipped home to her mama, Felix will simply have to be a gentleman about it.”
Papa was keeping secrets. He’d seen the menfolk searching the woods and raised not a single question about that at supper.
“Katie would not nip home to her mama when her mama is supposed to be nipping here, would she?”
Papa left off slathering raspberry jam on his toast. “You are asking me to predict what a young, impressionable female in contemplation of the greatest commitment of her pampered life might do. Cassandra herself would not hazard that conjecture. Perhaps Miss Engle’s parents recalled her home and refused their blessing. Felix is a fine lad, but he’s not exactly the answer to an ambitious mama’s prayers. Pass me the tea, there’s a good girl.”
I topped up my own cup first, then set the pot at Papa’s elbow. “Felix is the answer to Katie’s prayers, and she is the answer to his. I very much doubt Katie would know how to get herself back to London without a man to buy a ticket for her, wrangle her luggage, and ensure she made her connections. Besides, she took no clothing with her, and her maid has no idea where Miss Engle might be.”
Papa chewed vigorously, slurped his tea, and began buttering another slice of toast. “What does the popinjay have to say about it?”
“Mr. Cantrell Engle is concerned, but he’s also open to the possibility that Katie has turned up shy at the prospect of marriage. He used the term ‘bridal nerves.’”
“So the popinjay has a brain in his head. Who would have thought?”
As a younger woman, I’d referred to my father as shrewd, perceptive, perspicacious… The more apt term was wily. Papa used charm, bluster, intimidation, negotiation—any tool at all—to get what he wanted, though now I could not decide what his goal might be.
“You oppose this match.”
He took a leisurely, even dilatory, sip of his tea. “I am not in favor of it, but if I stand in Felix’s way overtly, he will dig in his heels, as only an indulged youngest son can. My own daughter pointed that out to me rather more forcefully than the occasion warranted. Felix and Miss Engle could elope, and her impecunious father would have no obligation to contribute to the couple’s solvency. Can’t have that now, can I?”
“Why not? You can afford to support Felix until his stables are profitable.” As I spoke, I recalled Mitchell’s comments about the earldom being less solvent than in previous decades and Papa diversifying his investments.
“What I can do and what I choose to do are often two very different things. Felix is more than of age to do as he pleases and to endure the consequences of his choices. Aren’t you having anything to eat?”
“I had a tray in my room.” Hot chocolate and buttery jam tarts. Not the most substantial fare, considering I’d likely spend the morning tramping about the woods. Nonetheless, I did not want to break figurative bread with my father as long as he was keeping information from me.
“You need more meat on your bones, missy. If you’re to bring either the Frenchie or the Highlander up to scratch, you must make some attempt to regain your youthful figure.”
How I longed to dump the teapot into my progenitor’s lap. I settled instead for rapping him figuratively on the nose with a bit of truth.
“You have it all wrong, Papa. Firstly, I am not inclined to bring anybody up to scratch after the experience of my marriage. Freddie was a ghastly choice on your part—horrid—and I was no better a match for him. I blame you and you alone for the suffering we both endured as a result of our nuptials, try though we might to accommodate ourselves to the situation.
“Secondly, if I ever do decide to remarry, my husband will see me as much more than a pretty bit of fluff to inspire his lust. My appearance will be irrelevant. Thirdly, your high-handedness where Sebastian is concerned has ensured that I am the last woman he’d marry. He’s wealthy and titled. His marchioness will doubtless cast a widow of advancing years into the shade.”
